Dead Space 2: Severed is missing something – game review

Visceral Games’ sci-fi horror gets its first slice of downloadable content, but is Severed an essential extra or should they cut it out with all these spin-offs?

Dead Space 2: Severed (360) – in space no one can hear you barf

This is the second downloadable expansion we’ve played lately, that is priced at an innocuously low 560 Microsoft Points. That comes out at just under £5, which doesn’t sound like much at first, but is still enough to get you a full price game of significant quality in many a shop’s bargain bin. Not to mention several top notch portable downloads. With the recent Traitor’s Keep for Fable III the price was worth it, here’s it’s not.

Although Dead Space 2 was a definite improved on its predecessor it really wasn’t very different from it. All the tweaks and pacing improvements were welcome, but if there’s to be any more from the series then there has to be some significantly new ideas.If it’s just more repetitive shooting like this download then Dead Space 3 is a sci-fi nightmare we’d rather not live through.Much like the iPad side story the two new chapters in this download focus on characters other than main hero Isaac Clarke. Here you’re playing as security officer Gable Weller, one of the main characters from lightgun game Dead Space: Extraction. Not that this fact is particularly evident, other than that you get to walk around in a slightly cooler looking space suit.The Severed subtitle not only refers to what you have to do with necromorph limbs but also the fact that Gabe is trying to get back to his pregnant wife, from whom he’s separated by several miles of monster-infested space station. Neither character is very well developed though and the rest of the plot involves nothing but obscure references to the wider storyline.Obviously no one is going to play this that hasn’t already played, and probably completed, the main game but the way Severed replicates iconic sequences with the new character does undermine much of the impact. In particular the implications that Isaac may be imagining or misinterpreting certain events are essentially ruined, since exactly the same things happen to Gabe as well.As a result this comes across as a disappointingly straightforward third person shooter. Because he works in security Gabe starts off with proper weapons – a pulse rifle and a sniper rifle- and quickly finds a flamethrower and a pile of cash with which to buy more.There are no puzzles and no zero gravity areas, or indeed any of the tricks the main game employed to fool you into thinking the game was more varied than it was. Severed does still illustrate Visceral Games’ improved ability with memorable set pieces though, with a sequence in a lift being particularly well orchestrated.The fast-moving Twitcher monsters from the first Dead Space make a return here, if you want to count them as new enemies, but otherwise the only change to the necromorph is in the sheer number onscreen at once.This isn’t such a problem given that the series has now built up a decent menagerie of monsters but the backdrops have always been one note and here you just end up wandering around the same sci-fi corridors from the main game. You do most of them in reverse order, like a mirror track in a race game, but that really doesn’t help to hide the fact that you’ve seen it all before.Not that the graphics aren’t still great – and of course the sound design continues to be the absolute best in video gaming at the moment – but it’s obvious where the money has been saved.So unless you want another hour (and it’s barely that for an experienced player) of straight combat there’s very little reason to consider this almost ruinously unambitious download.In Short:An extra hour of combat and so much less, with a download that manages to undermine much of the impressive storytelling of the main game.Pros:Dead Space 2’s combat is always tense and unpredictable – and the graphics and sound remain superb. Gabe’s suit is cool.Cons:No puzzles or any other diversions. Switching to another character spoils most of the plot ambiguity of the original. Poor value for money.Score:3/10Formats: Xbox 360 (reviewed) and PlayStation 3Price: 560 Microsoft Points/£4.76Publisher: Electronic ArtsDeveloper: Visceral GamesRelease Date: 1st March 2011Age Rating: 18